Physicists 'design' electrons with unusual properties

A team working on a scanning, tunnelling microscope at Stanford
University have managed to recreate graphene from scratch, paving the way
for the ability to tweak existing materials to our liking.

The physicists, led by Hari Manoharan, laid out individual carbon monoxide molecules
on a perfectly smooth sheet of copper to create what they refer to
as "molecular graphene" -- a substance that, strictly speaking,
isn't graphene, but acts remarkably like it.

The carbon monoxide molecules aren't part of the substance at
all, but instead block the free-flowing electrons on the copper
sheet, forcing them into a honeycomb pattern, resembling graphene.

That wasn't enough, though. After recreating graphene, the team
went about tweaking it by repositioning the carbon monoxide
carefully to change the electron flow. "One of the wildest things
we did was to make the electrons think they are in a huge magnetic
field when, in fact, no real field had been applied," Manoharan
said.

By carefully working out where the tweaks needed to be applied,
the team managed to simulate a magnetic field of 60 tesla -- 30 percent greater than the
greatest continuous magnetic field ever created on earth.

"Our new approach is a powerful new test bed for physics,"
Manoharan said. "Molecular graphene is just the first in a series
of possible designer structures. We expect that our research will
ultimately identify new nanoscale materials with useful electronic
properties."

He added: "We're now able to tune the fundamental properties of
electrons so they behave in ways rarely seen in ordinary
materials."